Hobbit, Lord of the Rings Erynion Lightning-Bow

Title: Erynion Lightning-Bow

Warning: AU. This story takes place in the same DH AU as all of my other stories.

Summary: Four dwarves, three elves, and three humans walk into a bar...

Actually, they sit down in the King's Hall in the Citadel of Minas Tirith, have a few drinks, and somehow manage not to kill one another. In the process, Gimli learns a few interesting things about his elven friend's past.

A/N: This ficlet is set during the festivities late into the night following Aragorn and Arwen's wedding.

Title: Erynion Lightning-Bow

Gimli, son of Gloin, stayed at battle readiness. Every sense quivered, and his hand stayed near the hilt of his table knife. He wished that he had his trusty axe. He felt almost like he was facing the hordes of Mordor again.

Legolas, across the table from him, was still. If Gimli hadn't known Legolas, he would have thought the elf as peaceful as an underground lake. But since Gimli had come to know Legolas well, he knew that the elf's stillness was the quiet of a predator waiting for its prey to move.

The prey, in this case, being Legolas' fellow Greenwood elf, Thomith. Which was fair enough. The idiots giving Gimli pause were Valin, son of Dwalin, and even worse, Gimli's own cousin Balder. At least Legolas' cousin had seemed a decent, quiet fellow. Legolas keeping company with Gimli had raised the young elven lord's eyebrow, but he'd accepted the matter equably enough before retiring with his apologies. That might have been because he didn't like drinking with dwarves, even if he was too polite to say so. But it might also have been because the members of each group, save Gimli and Legolas, were eyeing one another with mutual distrust and dislike, and Legolas' cousin didn't want to be caught up in a brawl.

Gimli didn't even blame Legolas' cousin Lord so-and-so. Gimli would have left himself, if friendship for Legolas hadn't kept him. They'd stayed by one another through dark hours, and by Aule, Gimli wasn't going to let his fellow dwarves' animosity keep him from celebrating Aragorn's coronation and wedding beside the other members of the fellowship.

Sadly, Frodo and Samwise had long since departed, still tired from their ordeal, and Merry and Pippin were, of course, off dancing again. That had left the Dale men, Haldor, Erlend, and Rune, to try and make polite conversation between the two groups, since Legolas and Gimli had their hands full with keeping outright hostilities from breaking out. The other elf still at the table - a Lieutenant Orthadvren - wasn't adding to the tension, but he wasn't helping, either. The same went for the other dwarves, Eyvin and Sverrir, both from Gimli's homeland of Erebor.

"Ah, so," attempted Rune, who was King Bard's heir, and putting his diplomatic skills to the test this night, "Ah, we have many...stories, of the elves, in Laketown."

"We dwarves have many stories of the elves, as well." Balder growled.

Gimli smacked Balder's thigh under the table. Across from him, the elf Thomith glared and then winced. Gimli wondered if Legolas' toes were as tired of kicking Thomith's shins as Gimli's palm was of smacking Baldri's leg. It seemed likely, by the faint wrinkle on Legolas' fair brow.

"Er...yes." The man Haldor offered gamely, responding to his friend Rune's silent appeal for help, "The dwarves dwelt at Erebor for many centuries before...er...that thing...happened."

Even Gimli's eyes narrowed at that, though he kept his peace. Not so Eyvin. The son of Lord Gloin's long-time foreman gave the young man of Dale a hard look, though his tone stayed level. "By "that thing," you mean the desolation of Smaug and the slaughter of both of our peoples, whilst the elves looked on?"

"What were we supposed to do, throw ourselves at the dragon to die while the lot of you got further away? Those inside your mountain were already lost, and it even wasn't chasing you anymore!" Thomith hissed back in outrage, while at the same time scooting further away from his prince. Thomith almost scuttled from Legolas, and in a hurried manner completely lacking the normal smooth, elegant elven grace, Gimli noted with no small amount of inner satisfaction.

"Daro, Thomith!" Legolas snapped, losing his own cool.

"Now, now." Gimli offered, "There's no need to drag up all of that." No matter how much Gimli might still resent the the elves' actions himself, but he hadn't been there, and couldn't know what had truly passed. In any case, "Tonight is for celebrating. Sauron was all of our bane, and he is gone. Aragorn, the King of this land and MY FRIEND," Gimli emphasized for his countrymen's benefit, "Was wedded tonight. 'Twould be a pity to wake him and his bride with the sound of our brangling over past grievances like stubborn children." Gimli cut into a wedge of cheese by slamming his knife down into the wood of the table, to further stress his point.

Thomith and Balder reluctantly subsided, the both of them muttering insincere apologies. Legolas' forest-green eyes glinted with amusement, although Gimli could tell that something else was now bothering his fellow warrior. He eyed Legolas inquiringly, wondering what it might be. The Prince of the Greenwood shook his head, just a fraction. Thomith didn't notice, although the older elven warrior, Orthadvren, did.

Eyvin, apparently trying to make up for his earlier vitriol, offered grudgingly, "My grandfather told some tales of the elves that were...not...bad. Tales of the days in which the elves and the men of Dale would work together to protect shipping along the River Running."

Rune and Haldor the Dalemen, grateful that someone was aiding them in their peacemaking, both nodded eagerly. "Our ancestors were amongst them." Rune offered, "They fought together with your father's soldiers," He told Legolas brightly, continuing, "Some among them were heroes to us, in Laketown."

"And known even to the dwarves." Gimli put in, doing his part to contribute to the more congenial atmosphere. "I myself liked the tales of the elven warrioress Bloody Baeraeriel, who wore a necklace of orc teeth around her neck to terrify her foes." It was rather a dwarven thing to do, he'd always thought. Gimli had grown to esteem Legolas highly, but he couldn't imagine the fussy elf being willing to do something so...unfastidious. Not even if it had been a highly effective tactic for giving even the orcs pause, and causing the human bandits to piss their own pants in fear. Or at least it had according to the Dalemen whom Gimli's grandfather had traded with.

Legolas coughed and looked away. Thomith made a disgusted face. Orthadvren hid a smile. Gimli wondered when he'd gotten so good at reading the frozen, snooty expressions of the elves.

"Me, I always thought it would have been neat to know their Captain, he whom they called the Balrog Chaser." Commented the man Haldor wistfully.

"He was a sergeant. Not a Captain." Legolas corrected absently, "It was an informal taskforce, and never merited the formality of a captaincy."

The collected company stared for a moment. Legolas sighed.

To draw the apparently unwanted attention away from his companion, Gimli laughed heartily, "Me, I always chuckled when I heard the story of how the Balrog-Chaser and Prince Garrik were captured by the bandit chief, then escaped by drinking his entire bloodthirsty crew under the table."

Legolas shook his head ever so slightly again. Orthadvren smirked. Thomith managed a small smile. "That really happened, or so I heard. Not that way, though. They put something in the cutthroats' drinks." He commented quietly, his tone surprisingly free of antagonism.

Even Balder had relaxed. He'd even stopped looking at Thomith as if Thomith would make a good target for his throwing axe. "I always liked the tales about Erynion Lightning-Bow." Balder related uncertainly, as if expecting Thomith or Orthadvren or even Legolas to take advantage of his peace offering to say something cruel and condescending. None of them did. Legolas did blush, and reach for his drink, while the corners of Thomith's mouth twitched into a smile. One plain and friendly enough for even Balder to see. The tension in the atmosphere ratcheted down another notch.

"Your grandfather and mine used to tell a story," Eyvin reminded Gimli, now leaning back and pulling out his pipe, "About shoving a mine car out of an exterior tunnel, once. Right on top of a troll which had been chasing the human Lord Garrik and Erynion Lightning-Bow."

"Aye, I remember that." Gimli replied nostalgically, relaxing enough to reach for his own pipe. "Cousin Kili always asked for that story. He was an archer himself, an odd avocation for a dwarf, but one he stubbornly persisted in until it was indulgently permitted." Gimli paused in memory of his cousin, who had lived through the dwarves' quest and the defeat of Smaug only to fall beside his brother whilst protecting their uncle Thorin during the Battle of Five Armies. "Kili used to act out the part where the troll stumbled just long enough to be flattened by the falling mine car and its weight of rock. He was Erynion Lightning-Bow, shooting the troll so full of arrows that it resembled a porcupine." Gimli snorted with laughter, "Me, I always had to be the unfortunate troll." Lost in his own reflection and pleased by the new -if probably temporary- amity at the table, Gimli was completely taken aback when Legolas shot to his feet with a mumbled apology and fled into the quiet dark of the gardens.

"And there, my...friends," Said Orthadvren the elven lieutenant with a faint, mildly amused gesture towards the fleeing Legolas, "Goes Erynion Lightning-Bow himself."

Thomith nodded, "'Twas our Prince's use-name, when a soldier. So that he was not a target. It was the name he used in the days before Smaug came, when the Dalemen of long lake and the elves of the Greenwood did indeed patrol together, at times."

Gimli's kinsman Balder and his fellows had gone from drunk and belligerent to drunk and awe-inspired. Gimli's jaw did drop along with theirs. After all, it wasn't every day that you found out you'd been fighting and sleeping alongside one of your own dwarfling-hood myths. But he didn't give himself time to dwell on it. Instead, he followed swiftly in Legolas' wake.

Legolas was not easy to find. In the end, Gimli let his knowledge of the elf's fondness of high places, open skies, and growing things guide him. And there, seated on top of an outer wall in the courtyard garden where the dead white tree reigned in state amidst humbler living plants, was Legolas. After the rigors of the Quest and the war, the elf's every expression was familiar to Gimli. But now, with his pale golden hair dyed a glowing silver by the moonlight, and such a distant, lost expression on his face, the elven Prince did seem a thing ethereal.

He knew that Gimli was there. He must not object, or at least not too much, since his sensitive ears would have given him enough warning to disappear again if he had.

"I knew Haldor's great-great-great-great-grandfather, a little." Legolas said, his voice empty, "He was friends with Halfdan, Aric, and an earlier Bard. I remember when they first joined our special mixed human and elven unit, as new recruits. I remember when they each married, and when their children were born. I remember when Halfdan fell, fighting yrch, and when Aric drowned in a flash flood. I remember when that earlier Bard died peacefully in his bed. By that time, two of their sons and five of their young kinsmen were in our unit. I remember..."

Looking at his friend, Gimli suddenly realized that the hollow tone in his voice was not a lack of emotion, but rather pain and despair. Masked by great self-control, but like Legolas' slight smiles and barely-there grimaces, Gimli could still discern it. It helped him know what to say.

"If this is helping ye Lad, then by all means, keep on." Gimli interrupted with gruff kindness, "If not, then...Legolas, I do understand. Acorns into withered trees, you said, and I knew what it meant, then." Although Gimli hadn't really grasped the reality of it, but that wasn't what Legolas needed to hear, and it wasn't the important thing, anyway. The important part was, "You're still the same slender lad who sang to raise our spirits as we crossed the high snows, who put a hand on my shoulder for the first time when I mourned my kin in Moria. Who mourned Ganadalf beside me, yet rallied himself enough to help guide us to the safety of Lothlorien."

Legolas looked to Gimli with unexpected hope and relief, as if dwarf had found the answer that the elf hadn't even known that he needed to hear. Gimli continued with a teasing smile, "You're still the same lad who threw a temper tantrum about getting blindfolded with me, but did it anyway so that we could finally get to a safe place to rest. You're the same elf who ran across Rohan with me, looking for Merry and Pippin. The same who fought beside me at Helm's deep, who walked the path of the dead at my side. I understand that ye have done other things, too, in your long life. Who wouldn't have, in five plus centuries. But you're still the kind and brave but slightly crazy lad I've come to know. You haven't changed, and I'm not going to treat you any differently." Gimli narrowed his eyes, "Even if you do get all the dashing nicknames."

Legolas laughed. And not just laughed, but that happy, unexpected, light-hearted young man's laugh, the one that Gimli had only ever heard Aragorn draw from him, before. Even better, the elf got down from the edge of that be-cursed high wall, still laughing. Pleased, he remarked, "Gimli, I think that my father will like you."

Gimli rather doubted that, but perhaps Thranduil would be as different, once one got to know him, as Legolas had been from Gimli's first impression of him. In which case, "I think I will like him, too. For having sired my friend, if nothing else." Gimli nodded firmly, and Legolas nodded back. Side-by-side, they went back into the King's Hall. Just in time for Legolas to teasingly relate that the solemn lieutenant Orthadvren had once been known as Orthad the Orc Slayer.

In later years, when Legolas was being particularly offensive, Gimli would tease him by calling him Legolas Lightning- Mouth. Elladan and Elrohir Elrondion really liked that name, and picked it up. Aragorn and Faramir, out of amused concern for their gwador, did not. Even if, sometimes, Legolas did talk too much.

Gimli really was curious about how many of the stories about Erynion Lightning-Bow were true. Even more curious than the Dale men, to be honest. But he was patient enough, and sensitive enough to Legolas' feelings, to wait until he had one of Legolas' looser lipped family members in private, to ask. Most of the tales were surprisingly accurate, but to Gimli's disappointment, Lieutenant-the-Lady Baeraeriel's orc teeth were nothing but cunningly-wrought beads. During one memorable party, Gimli even got to wear them, twined into his own braided beard by the drunk Baeraeriel and the even more intoxicated Legolas.

Thanks for reading! Reviews always appreciated.

5


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Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Friendship, Humor